Tag #137708 - Interview #78465 (Egon Lovith)

The students of Zsidlic [Tarbut Jewish Lyceum] [14] knew me, and they knew that I drew and by that time I already had sculptures, too. So, one day, one of the assistants of Mark Antal [15] [former director] asked me to go and see him – because he didn’t find any other sculptor at the time – and he asked me to sculpt the death-mask of Mark Antal whose burial was the following day. I think I had previously met Mark Antal when I was looking for recommendations for the private university in Pest and I went to see him. He told me that if I couldn’t get a letter of recommendation from anybody else he would write me one, or something like that. Anyway, so I took some plaster to take the contours of Antal’s face so I could cast the mask. He was quite overweight and with his puffy face, his distinct chin and his strong cheekbones he resembled a Roman Senator. He had his eyes closed. I smeared petroleum wax all over his face and I plugged his ears and his nose with cotton balls so the plaster wouldn’t get into them. I wasn’t really happy to perform this on a dead body but I didn’t have a choice. I made a slip-cover from clay and put it on his neck and that’s how I finished the mask. At home I cast and dried the mask and polished it with a small amount of yellow paint, which gave the mask a deathly white appearance. The most difficult part was that I didn’t have any experience, but somehow I managed to do the job. I gave the death mask to the assistant and I don’t know where they put it up but a lot of people who went to the Jewish Lyceum used to mention it to me.